The Georgia-born chef has been, along with fellow Food Network hosts Rachael Ray and Guy Fieri, a key player behind the explosion of popular culinary TV shows. But she has also been criticized for promoting high-calorie and fried foods to consumers. Last year, she revealed she suffers from Type 2 diabetes, which doctors have long associated with unhealthful eating habits.

Friday started on a sour note for Deen and quickly turned worse. She failed to appear for an early-morning interview with NBC's "Today," where she was scheduled to discuss the controversy that has erupted over a videotaped deposition last month. Deen is being sued by the former manager of a restaurant she owned with her brother. "Today" co-host Matt Lauer mentioned Deen's no-show on the air and later, on Twitter, called the situation "very confusing."

Under sworn testimony, Deen revealed that "of course" she had used the N-word to describe black people in the past and also said she had planned a wedding party in which black wait staff were to be attired as antebellum slaves. The deposition also revealed that Deen had allowed pornographic pictures to be passed around as a joke in the workplace.

Deen said she was not a racist but, at least in the deposition, made no apology for making racial jokes: "It's just what they are — they're jokes … most jokes are about Jewish people, rednecks, black folks.... I can't determine what offends another person."

By midday Friday — after a storm had raged around her all week — Deen issued an impassioned plea for forgiveness on YouTube.

"I want to apologize to everybody for the wrong that I've done," she said in the video. "I want to learn and grow from this.... Inappropriate hurtful language is totally, totally unacceptable. I've made plenty of mistakes along the way.

The Stephen King experiment begins on CBS Sunday night, an open-ended series adaptation of "Under the Dome." The novel ran 1,100-plus pages, but still the show's creators have been given free reign in taking the story in new directions, which could be interesting. Or not -- has anyone but the...

In a speech that stirred political controversy in two countries, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Congress on Tuesday that negotiations underway between Iran and the United States would "all but guarantee" that Tehran gets nuclear weapons to the detriment of the entire world.